Driving and eating will cost more this year

Looking to cut your spending in the new year? You may be out of luck in some areas.

From travel to postage, housing and tuition, 2014 will bring increased prices for many of the things we use most.

Turnpike tolls

Starting Sunday, drivers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will see a toll increase of 12 percent for cash customers and 2 percent for E-ZPass users.

For travelers headed east from Reading to Philadelphia, that'll mean a new cash toll rate of $4.00, up from $3.55, from the Morgantown to Valley Forge exits.

Westward to Harrisburg from the Reading turnpike exit off Route 222, cash tolls will increase from $3.55 to $4.00; and from $22.35 to $25.05 for drivers going to Pittsburgh.

The increase will be significantly less for those using E-ZPass, with the rate from Reading to Pittsburgh rising minimally, from $17.58 to $17.93. An E-ZPass user will pay $2.76 to go from Morgantown to Valley Forge, an increase of a nickel.

The rate increase, approved in July, is necessary for the turnpike to meet its funding obligation to the state, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has said. New revenues will also go toward the turnpike's plans to rebuild the 73-year-old toll road and widen it from four to six lanes.

The turnpike commission has made no secret that it wants drivers on the toll road to use E-ZPass.

Groceries

Expect to pay more at the grocery store. That's the forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA projects food prices are likely to increase 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent this year. Such an increase would be fairly typical, the agency said. Over a 20-year period, the average annual increase in grocery prices is 2.8 percent.

If there are droughts or other severe weather events, price increases could be higher than projected, the USDA said.

Postage

Those sending letters and paying bills via snail mail will pay a few extra cents for their first-class stamp. Effective Jan. 26, a temporary price hike of 3 cents will bring the cost of a stamp to 49 cents. The increase will remain in effect for no more than two years, giving the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service a temporary bump in revenue as it recovers from the 2008 economic downturn. A permanent increase was rejected last month by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

College tuition

In the fall, Penn State University officials briefed its trustees on the university's plan to seek a 5 percent increase in state aid for the 2014-15 academic year.

If the request is fully funded, university President Rodney A. Erickson said at the time that Penn State would expect to limit tuition increases next fall to an aggregate of 2.85 percent, with individual campus rates varying.

The tuition hike, if approved, would echo that of other public four-year universities across the country, which increased tuition an average of 2.9 percent for in-state students for the 2013-14 school year. For private schools, the average tuition grew 3.8 percent.

Fuel

In December, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected the average retail price of regular-grade gasoline to be $3.23 per gallon for the month. For 2014, the EIA has projected an increase in the average retail price to $3.43.

As part of Pennsylvania's new transportation bill, the state will gradually remove the limit on wholesale tax on gasoline and eliminate the current 12-cent-a-gallon retail gas tax. The tax had been capped at $1.25 per gallon, while the actual wholesale price is about $2.70 a gallon. Within five years, if wholesalers pass on the full increase to consumers, the gas tax could increase by about 28 cents a gallon, boosting the state gas tax from the current 31.2 cents a gallon to 59.2 cents by 2018.

The move, along with increases in other drivers fees, will pump $2.3 billion into improvements to Pennsylvania's highways, bridges and mass-transit systems over the next few years.

As part of the plan, a typical driver, assumed to own one vehicle and drive it 12,000 miles a year, can expect to pay $22 more a year in 2014 and $132 more by 2018, according to calculations made by Gov. Tom Corbett's Transportation Funding Advisory Commission in 2011.

Housing

Nationally, Moody's Analytics projects the cost of a single family home to rise 5 percent.

"But that's just one piece of the puzzle," said Moody's economist Ryan Sweet. "We expect mortgage rates to increase in 2014, so that's going to make the cost of buying a home a little higher than 2013."

The increase likely won't be cost-prohibitive, though.

"I really think housing will really be the key driver with the U.S. recovery in 2014," Sweet said. "When the housing market is doing well, the U.S. economy does well."

Elsewhere, Sweet added: "Just generally, consumer prices will go up modestly. It's going to be below the 2 percent that the federal government targets for inflation, but overall, we should see more broader gains in consumer prices in 2014."